POSTSCRIPT. 65 
deration of astronomers whether the imaginary outline of this constellation might not be so altered as to 
restore to Leguat’s Solitaire the honours which are its due. 
In connection with Pingré’s visit, Dr. Hamel adds the following judicious suggestion :—“ We know 
the spot in Rodriguez where Leguat and his companions resided for two years. It appears that Pingré also 
lived there in 1760 and 1761, and conducted his astronomical observations, for he says (Hist. de P Acad. 1761, 
p. 108, and Mémoires, p. 415) that the place was called ‘ Enfoncement de Frangois Leguat.’* In Leguat’s 
map the place is accurately indicated where the common kitchen of the settlers stood, and where the great 
tree grew, under which they used to sit on a bench to take their meals. The tree and bench are introduced 
in the map. At these two spots it is probable that the bones for a complete skeleton of Leguat’s Solitaire 
might be collected; those of the head and feet on the site of the kitchen, and the sternum and other bones 
on that of the tree.” 
I have next to notice a memoir by Professor Owen, just published in the Transactions of the Zoological 
Society, vol. iti. p.345, on the remains of Dinornis, Palapteryx, Notornis, and Nestor, discovered by 
Mr. W. Mantell in New Zealand. In this paper Professor Owen has availed himself of the recent dissection 
of the Dodo’s head, to carry on the comparison of that bird with the Dinornis, which he had commenced 
(in regard to the leg bones) in 1846. He further remarks: “ With respect to the Dodo, the idea enter- 
tained by Dr. Reinhardt and by Mr. Gould ® of its affinity to the Co/wmbide, was supported by new arguments 
adduced by Mr. Strickland in his elaborate and interesting communications and lecture before the British 
Association at Oxford (June, 1847).” 
This quotation contains a slight inaccuracy which I must be allowed to correct. In regard to 
Professor Reinhardt, I have already (at p. 40 swpra) acknowledged the originality of his idea as to the 
affinity between the Dodo and the Coldumbide, but there is no trace of this idea in any of Mr. Gould’s 
published writings. It is true that in his account of the Guathodon, published March Ist, 1846 (see p.40 
supra), Mr. G. was the first to assert its affinity to the Pigeons, and he at the same time incidentally adds 
that the form of the beak and nostrils “strongly remind one of the celebrated Dodo;” a remark to which 
he was guided by a sentence which he quotes from my Report on Ornithology (British Association Reports, 
1844, p. 189), stating that Mr. Titian Peale “is said to have discovered a new bird allied to the Dodo, 
which he proposes to name Didunculus.” But Mr. Gould never stated that the Guathodon (or Didunculus) 
was actually allied to the Dodo, and no one in this country had ventured to assert the affinity of the latter 
bird to the Pigeons, until, in the end of 1846 or beginning of 1847, I succeeded in convincing several 
naturalists that this affinity was real. Mr. Gould has politely informed me that a short time previously to 
the meeting of the Association “Dr. Melville showed me the dissected head of the Dodo from Oxford, 
together with skulls of several species of Co/umbide, when their similarity of form was so apparent that L 
became a convert to its Columbidine affinity.” 
1 From the Hist. de Acad. Roy. des Sc. 1776, p.37, it appears that Pingré published, or at least wrote, a rela- 
tion of his voyage,in which he speaks of Solitaires, but I can find no notice of any such work among the published 
biographies of Pingré. 
2 The latitude of Pingré’s observatory was 19° 40’ 40” S., its longitude 4" 3 26” (or 60°51’ 30” E.) of Paris. 
3 Birds of Australia, part xxii. Description of the Gzathodon strigirostris: the bird which its discoyerer, 
Mr. Titian Peale, supposed to be allied to the Dodo, and proposed to name Didunculus, which was first described 
by Sir W. Jardine under the name of Gnathodon strigirostris, and which Mr. Gould regards as being most nearly 
allied to the family of Columbide.” 
